96 years old and still as anxious as a fish...

THE latest news alert from the science journal Nature contained an item that left me worried.

PUBLISHED: PUBLISHED: 00:01, Thu, Feb 21, 2013

If a human were to eat an angry fish that has been swimming in a river polluted with oxazepam, would the drug then have a beneficial effect on the human’s anxiety levels?

The headline told the whole story: ‘Anti-anxiety drug found in rivers makes fish more aggressive’ and it was illustrated with a picture of a rather disgruntled-looking perch. Wanting to know more about these truculent fish, I rang up the local aquarium and asked to be put through to the perch tank.

The call took some time to be answered but then an irritated sounding fish came on the line and snarled, “What do you want?”

“I don’t know if you’ve seen the news alert from Nature,” I said, “but I was hoping…”

“Oh were you?” sneered the fish.

“Hoping indeed. Well you may be interested to hear that I’m hoping too. Hoping that they’ll stop dumping anti-anxiety drugs in my river, and hoping that I will be allowed to get on with my swimming in peace without being called to the phone to answer damfool questions from journalists.”

I decided to ignore the insult, and went on with my question: “Why do you think anti-anxiety drugs, which are used to calm people down, should have the opposite effect on fish? According to Nature, people on such medication pass the drugs in their urine, and the drugs survive wastewater treatments to end up in rivers, where they make previously timid fish bold, antisocial and voracious.”

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” said the fish, sounding increasingly bad tempered, “how would you like it if some loony high on drugs, without even asking your permission, urinated in your bathwater? It’s all very well telling us that benzodiazepines such as oxazepam, which is what this study is all about, enhance neuron signals that dampen down the brain’s activity and help people relax, but we fish are quite damp enough anyway and this latest study is only the latest in a string a research identifying fish-mind-altering substances that are being peed into our rivers.

Did you know that ibuprofen has been shown to reduce courtship behaviour in male zebrafish, or that Prozac alters behaviour in the fathead minnow? Don’t you think that’s enough to make any fish bold, antisocial and voracious? Except fathead minnows, of course, who are too fat-headed to see what’s happening.”

“That’s very interesting,” I said, “but what I really wanted to ask, while I have you on the line, is what happens next?

If a human were to eat an angry fish that has been swimming in a river polluted with oxazepam, would the drug then have a beneficial effect on the human’s anxiety levels and will this cycle of calm humans and furious fish continue as long as people eat fish?” This question was met by a total silence on the other end of the line.

I could almost see the fish, gawping and opening and closing its mouth in silence. Then it exploded in a tirade of piscatorial wrath. “Got me on the line?” it said. “Eat an angry fish? How dare you say such things?”

And so saying, it slammed the phone down and swam off. I suspect it may not have been a perch at all. It sounded to me like some sort of whingeing carp.